Neighbor charged in 1970 murder

ST. AUGUSTINE -- Barbara Jean Galliher was a newly married, 22-year-old Air Force wife when she was strangled in Sedalia, Mo., nearly 30 years ago while her husband was overseas.

Yesterday, police in St. Augustine arrested her former neighbor, now a 50-year-old retired Air Force master chief who had lived in St. Johns County the past 11 years.

Donald A. Vanderbent of the first block of Veronese Court was picked up at work yesterday and charged with murder under a Missouri warrant.

"It's a prayer answered," Stephen Galliher, 50, told police after learning a suspect had been arrested in the 1970 death of his wife.

Vanderbent became a suspect after his wife, Julie Vanderbent, went to police to say her husband had told her details about a strangulation in Missouri. Investigators in Sedalia said the information matched their case.

At the time, Vanderbent lived next door to Galliher in the town of about 19,000 that is 72 miles east of Kansas City. He was stationed at nearby Whiteman Air Force Base.

At the time, Vanderbent was questioned but never charged, said Lt. David Shoar of the St. Augustine Police Department.

"He was a suspect 30 years ago, he was questioned 30 years ago," Shoar said. "We do think it was a sex-motivated attack."

Vanderbent remained in Sedalia for about three years after the slaying then was transferred by the Air Force. He retired from the service in 1989 and moved to the St. Augustine area.

Vanderbent worked as a guide driving a tour train about seven years and had worked in manufacturing the past three years. He was questioned at VAW of America, a manufacturing plant south of St. Augustine yesterday.

Vanderbent was being held without bond in St. Johns County yesterday. Missouri has placed him under a $1 million bond.